Kansas seat belt enforcement campaign releases numbers

123 citations issued for teens, 493 for adults

Kansas law enforcement and a high school seat belt group buckled down on seat belt enforcement in February and March.

The Kansas Highway Patrol released numbers from a statewide enforcement campaign, which teamed KHP with local law agencies and the Seatbelts Are For Everyone program. SAFE is a student-run organization in high schools. A KHP news release says 124 schools in 54 counties participate in the program.

The enforcement campaign ran from Feb. 24 to March 7, and during the campaign, KHP issued 123 citations for teens, ages 14 to 17; 493 for adults, ages 18 and older; and 67 citations for improperly restrained children.

Kansas Department of Transportation statistics from 2012 note 43 teens died in vehicle crashes in Kansas that year, 74 percent of whom weren’t properly restrained. KDOT’s Bureau of Transportation Safety and Technology hosts the awareness campaign in the spring every year in an effort to decrease teen casualties.

From 2008 to 2009, the KHP release said the observed seat belt compliance rate for teens of driving age, 15 to 17, was 61 percent. In 2013, the observed compliance was 81 percent.